5 2 



My Pond. 



dappled the water, as it were, with golden rain that 

 seemed to flit and waver and return in wondrous 

 rhythmic regularity, like breathing, or the notes of a 

 musical scale heard at a distance. As the sun sinks, 

 the brilliant colours die away into a kind of salmon 

 colour on the sky in long soft bars, tremulous if not 

 palpitating, growing fainter and fainter at the extremes ; 

 the shadows deepen ; but the twilight is pleasant, and I 

 often linger till the darkness falls, and I can listen to 

 the owl's cry heard not far off. Indeed, on one or 

 two occasions, these wonderful winged cats, so intent 

 in search of their prey, have flown so close past my 

 ear as to give me a surprise and shock, till I assured 



myself, as the eye 

 caught a glimpse of 

 the soft white figure 

 gliding on, that it 

 was only an owl. 

 The farmers now like 

 to encourage these 

 settlers, knowingtheir 

 value as mousers and 

 destroyers of other 

 vermin, and the army 

 has been reinforced 

 quite recently. The 

 barn-owl, when she 

 has young, is said to 

 bring to her nest a 

 mouse every twelve 

 minutes, and as both 

 male and female hunt, 

 the lowest computation is forty mice a day. That is 

 something surely ! 



